Enviro: Building: USA's green wave flowing to Canada in construction industry

In a recent column, Korky Koroluk pinpoints connection between govt-triggered green wave in USA with its gradual adoption north of the border in Canada (July 8,2k10).

U.S. green wave is moving north

It’s often possible to predict what will happen in Canada in a year or two or three by watching what’s happening in the United States now.

That’s why our construction industry should be aware of an executive order signed by U.S. President Barack Obama last October. The order sets out numerous green requirements for the U.S. federal government, requiring various government agencies to meet a number of energy, water and waste-reduction goals.

These apply only to federal buildings, of course, but the resulting impact for the construction industry could be profound since government construction is a trend-setter.

Building Information Management, or BIM, is an example of a new technology that was growing slowly until the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) made BIM compulsory for all government buildings. That meant that any company that wanted to bid on a government building had to have BIM capability.

BIM’s growth rate took off. And since more contractors were able to use BIM, more private-sector buyers of construction began to demand it as well.

That has meant more Canadian buyers aware of BIM and the advantages it offers, so its use is growing in Canada, as well — just not as fast.

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You can expect something similar to happen as the U.S. government places more and more emphasis on green construction.
For example, there now must be a 26-per-cent improvement in water efficiency by 2020. New emphasis will be placed on sustainability requirements. And there is a net-zero-energy requirement for all federal building projects by 2030.

In a recent speech to members of the U.S. Green Building Council, GSA administrator Martha Johnson said among the organization’s objectives are helping help other federal agencies make greater strides in sustainability, identifying environmentally friendly initiatives, and increasing federal building performance.

The GSA, she said, is setting its sights on “eliminating the impact of the federal government on our natural environment.”
She outlined a number of areas in which the GSA could take a leading role, including cultivating green-oriented public-private partnerships. And it could use the federal government’s stock of buildings as a green proving ground for new sustainable-building and design technologies.

But she placed most emphasis on the search for a zero environmental footprint.

Both industry and the government, she said, had to be willing to fail, and to learn from and share those experiences, and in the process, work together to develop new tools.

All of this sounds great to anyone keen on environmental protection, and scary to anyone wary of increased government involvement in industry. So it’s important to understand that the executive order does not allow agencies to create new regulations governing the private sector. Indeed, it’s really just an extension of what various agencies already do for their internal operations, like the GSA’s internal requirement that their buildings meet the LEED Silver standard.

But although there may not be new rules, the executive order makes clear that the administration is going to require all agencies to enforce existing rules. And by encouraging the promotion of green public-private partnerships, the government is using a powerful lever on the way to sustainable buildings.

All this means that the American building construction industry will have to accommodate a lot of change just during the next 20 years.

Given the Canadian tendency to look southward for innovation, it seems likely that many of the things that are just beginning to happen in the U.S. will slowly find their way into Canadian practice.

Korky Koroluk is an Ottawa-based freelance writer. Send comments to editor@dailycommercialnews.com